


changes on our hands and in our faces

by gealbhan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: (kind of??), Awkwardness, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Future Fic, Love Confessions, M/M, Meta, third-years kagehina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 22:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8344537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gealbhan/pseuds/gealbhan
Summary: And it's then, in the lit gymnasium thick with the scent of victory, Tobio thinks that he's in love with Hinata.





	

**Author's Note:**

> \+ title from 'laughter lines' by bastille.
> 
> \+ i honestly dont know what this is ??? i just started writing n couldnt stop then abandoned it for like 2 days before hesitantly editing.. i dont even know what the timeline is supposed to be, it's a little weird but i'm gonna just handwave it w/e w/e!! (also vague wrt the tournament they're in, awards, etc etc since i know... very little about actual volleyball and couldnt decide who theyd match up against? h a h a)
> 
> \+ (i havent tagged anything in a while what do you.. do. like, i'm still getting used to ao3 even though i think i posted fics here now and then before... yikes)

Sweat clings to Tobio's skin, his palms raw and aching, his knees ready to give out beneath him. A whistle blows, and he almost doesn't hear it, lost in the rush of the air around him in this damp and stunned silent gymnasium. Sound echoes around him like a punch—he staggers with the weight of the world, somehow. And then, the cheering starts: of the stands, of his teammates, of Hinata, who has surpassed any category Tobio could squeeze him into.

They won.

Or at least, they have, for now.

Their opponents are fighting tears and so is Tobio, for reasons he cannot comprehend.

He won. It settles somewhere in his mind, and even then, he corrects it—they won. It's not his victory alone, because even Tsukishima is almost smiling and Yamaguchi is screaming and half-sobbing and Hinata...

Hinata's eyes are the brightest Tobio has ever seen them, and that's saying something. He's found himself looking at Hinata maybe more than he should, orange hair and amber eyes catching his gaze and staying there for a long time.

And it's then, in the lit gymnasium thick with the scent of victory (victory, Tobio has learned, smells like volleyball and sweat and all the body odor of a gym filled with high school boys who've been running and jumping all over the damn place), Tobio thinks that—

_(—a fleeting thing, brittle and too soon but at the same time all too late, he's spent three years at Hinata Shouyou's side but it's only now the full thought crosses his mind—)_

—he's in love with Hinata.

 

“We won.”

It's been hours and the sun is far past set. Tobio has been staring at his hands for a while, rubbed raw from passes and tosses and spikes. His eyes are still wet and his ears still ringing, stomach tumbling with the celebratory dinner and pride. Still his head lifts at the voice beside him, uncharacteristically quiet.

Hinata's fingers clutch at the handles of his bike. He's not riding it, but instead walking alongside Tobio. (Yamaguchi and Tsukishima had ditched them at the crossroads a while back, but both had said, soft: _Good game_.) The moonlight catches on the edges of his hair, and somehow Tobio doesn't believe this is the same runty first-year he knew years ago. He's still scrawny, only a few inches taller than he had been, but there's a different aura or something around him.

 _He's the Little Giant,_ whisper people of Karasuno's new ace.

And looking at him now, looking at him in the gym where he'd jumped and spiked and somehow Tobio had never seen anything so beautiful, Tobio has no doubt they're right.

“We won,” repeats Hinata.

He's been doing this for a couple hours, had been shell-shocked since the final whistle blew. Tobio is the same, if he's being honest with himself. It had been monumental and at the same time, over so fast: the sharp tone of the whistle. A Best Setter award in his fingers (then a derisive shout from Oikawa Tooru in the stands, followed by a pitchy _Iwa-chan, you don't have to glare that hard_ and then drowned out by the applause and cheers from their ex-upperclassmen and team). Awards to the rest of his team.

“We won.” Again. His voice is soft and almost a whisper, but loud enough for Tobio to hear. It's spoken with more reverence than his past thousand.

“I know, dumbass,” says Tobio, unable to stand it. He can't fight the smile that crosses his face, or the turning of his stomach when Hinata turns to face him. “You don't have to keep repeating it.”

Hinata's head tilts. “That's not a scary smile, Kageyama,” he says, almost in awe. Tobio forces a scowl, but he's floating on the tips of his toes and the smile returns in a few more seconds. “You actually look kinda nice when you smile, y'know.”

“What.”

Hinata's face erupts into flame, and if Tobio's cheeks didn't feel a little warm themselves, it might've been a little funny. “I mean! When it's not the creepy one, where you look like you're planning something evil like the Grand King!”

Tobio opens and shuts his mouth, unable to come up with an answer. “T...” His jaw feels stuck. “Thank... you...?”

Hinata ducks his head. His face is redder than his hair, notes Tobio. Then again, Tobio's feels like it might be, too. “You're welcome! I guess!” Hinata shoves one hand against the side of his face.

Tobio's feet, still aching, stutter to a stop. This setting, here—the trees rustle with the light breeze, and the full moon is visible without the glaring of the clouds, and every blade of grass stirs. Tobio stops, his bag sagging at his side, and he realizes how heavy it is then. He dusts himself off, though he doesn't need to, and notices Hinata has stopped, too, a couple feet ahead. Behind them is a trail of footsteps. Like a dream, Tobio hears his own voice, but not what he's said.

Hinata's face goes red again. “W-w-w-what,” he says. “Ummm, Kageyama are you feeling all right.” He looks ready to spontaneously combust. “Seriously, did that one shot give you a concussion or something? I don't think it hit your head that bad but, um—”

“What?” asks Tobio. He doesn't know what he said but it had to be pretty bad if—

Hinata sputters for a few more moments, before saying: “Are you delirious? I mean you'd have to be to tell me you love me, but—ah! Are you dying, Kageyama? Don't die!” His voice evolves into nothing lower than a low roar, or at most a high wail.

Tobio's face warms. Ah.

“I'm not _dying_ , idiot,” he manages to say. Now _he_ feels like he's ready to spontaneously combust. “I just—um—” He's not sure how to verbally backtrack from this point. Could he say he hadn't meant it, maybe? But that'd raise more questions than anything else.

Tobio realizes (not for the first time, with regards to Hinata) that he's _fucked_.

Hinata cocks his head to one side. “Kageyama,” he says, voice quivering. Tobio thinks, _this is it, I'm dead_. “Are you okay?” His eyes shine, and Tobio is reminded of that rush in the court, when Hinata had looked at him with all the trust and all the sunshine in the world and, for Tobio, galaxies had settled into place. He blinks to see Hinata closer than he had been a few minutes before, waving a hand. “You're zoning out. But, um, why'd you—”

His face goes red again. Tobio looks away.

“I...” He swallows. His throat is dry, anxiety replacing the dull pride in the pit of his stomach. He feels like he might throw their all-you-can-eat-buffet (which had been enough to make Yamaguchi gag at them and their alumni cackle and say _you guys sure haven't changed_ , or, in Noya's case, tell them to eat _more_ ) right back up. “I said it because I do,” says Tobio, before he can think to regret it.

Hinata blinks. Once, twice.

Tobio grows more and more worried over the seconds that stretch out in front of them, threaded like hours and like needles in his side. He wonders if this is a moment like the one before he tossed and there was no one there—and it's his knee-jerk reaction to yell and revert to that selfish, needlessly cruel person.

But now, Hinata is here, and for Tobio, maybe that's all he needs.

Hinata mumbles something, face somehow even more red than before.

“Huh?” Tobio's head tips to one side. He's warm, from the sides of his face to his fingertips all the way down to his toes, and some still-selfish part of him wonders, had he just said—

“I said I love you too!” says Hinata, something of a shout. Tobio clasps one hand over his ear and Hinata clasps both of his own over his mouth. Tobio feels himself smile again, and it hurts and is wonderful all at the same time. “I mean, um.” Tobio's face still burns, but he can tell Hinata's more or less in the same position, so. “I love you, too.”

It's softer this time, and—

(—Tobio thinks this like it's one of those romantic comedies Oikawa and, somehow, later the entirety of the Karasuno volleyball team forced him and the others to watch as a “team bonding exercise”—)

—more intimate. Sweeter. He guesses.

Hinata gets up onto his tiptoes. Tobio is ninety-percent sure both of them are painfully inexperienced when it comes to things like this, too wrapped up in volleyball and their own minds to notice other people in a dating-way. He finds himself not minding when Hinata's closed mouth meets his, something soft and promising.

“Can you repeat it?” asks Hinata, with a devilish grin. Tobio would believe the sudden confidence if not for the slight stutter.

Tobio glares, face still hot. “I love you,” he says, flatly, anyways.

Hinata _giggles_ , and kisses him again. It's even clumsier and their noises bump together and their teeth clack when they both try to open their mouths, but it's still nice. When he leans back, Tobio finds himself caught up in looking at him again—and thinks, no, that's not quite right. He hadn't fallen in love with Hinata's looks, he'd fallen in love with the utter force of his personality, his warmth and determination and—

Hinata laughs again, more a breathy exhale than anything else. “What're you thinking?” he says. For someone who's face is as red as his is, he seems to have gained a lot of (false, obvious to anyone looking at him for more than a second which Tobio certainly is doing) confidence in the drop of a hat. “Something sappy?”

Tobio refuses to answer. Instead, he tangles their fingers together atop Hinata's bike handle and walks them back towards the path.

Towards the future, he tells himself, and then that there's all the time in the world for them to get there.

**Author's Note:**

> \+ please leave kudos and/or comment if you liked!!
> 
> \+ also, i'm rarely online but my tumblrs [here](http://spaaaaarrow.tumblr.com) if you want to... talk or something. or complain at how sappy this is, i dont know.


End file.
